Charger Chronicles 2: Charger the Weapon

by Lea Tassie

  "Hi, Pen," a familiar voice greeted her. "Where are you off to on such a lovely day?" It was Pennington's cleaning lady, a young girl who came by a few times a week to help with the household chores.

  "Oh, I'm just off to see the prime minister. I need to give him a piece of my mind."

  "You know the prime minister?" the young woman asked, seeming a little shocked by this news.

  "Yes I do. He was one of the brighter kids in my class in school, but with this Gray business he seems to have dulled a bit," Pen replied. She had been a teacher in her youth and Dayton had been her student when he was in grade five.

  "So do I understand you correctly? Do you disapprove of the military actions we are taking toward the Grays?" the young girl pressed.

  "Yes, I do. My great grandmother had a Gray for a friend when she was no more than six or seven years old, and it was very kind, not at all like the monsters described by these damn Taskoids!"

  "Your great grandmother had a Gray friend, here, on our world? How could that be? I have never heard of one being here," the young girl gasped. Others in the transport were beginning to listen to this conversation.

  "My great grandmother called it Buttons. She and her father spent a few days with it and it taught them how to work a small hand-held device that did many things. Buttons was such a sweet little Gray. How could anyone believe his people to be these monsters we are told about? I'm going to go and straighten this whole mess out today. I'm sure Dayton has not been told all the facts," Pen said, happy to ramble on about the subject.

  The young girl happened to be part of a petitioning group which was trying to stop the military action, and she felt that Pen's connections might help. "Miss Pennington," she whispered quietly, "would you be willing to accompany me at the city center? I have friends who would love to hear your story and, to be honest, I don't think it wise for you to be left alone now. Many people on this transport have heard us talking, and most of them want to go to war with the Grays."

  Pen agreed and, when the transport reached the city center transit hub, the young girl whisked her off down a side street. They were followed for a few yards by several angry, muttering people from the transport, but those people soon turned back. Eventually the two met with the girl's friends. This small group met in a side street café. There they listened as Pen retold her story.

  The group's leader was Celeste, a tall woman from the city of Canda. She said, "I think your story is very important to our group, Miss Pennington. Can you help us get to the prime minister's office?"

  "I would be glad to. I'm sure Dayton will listen to us. He was such a good boy," Pen said with affection, remembering him as a young lad. Pennington and eight women set off at once for the prime minister's office.

  They entered the main building and made their way upstairs to the prime minister's offices. After greeting some staffers, they were escorted to a waiting room. Only a few short minutes later, Dayton appeared. "How can I help you ladies today?"

  Celeste stood up and, with Pen beside her, introduced the group. "We are here today to ask that you reconsider the actions our people have been taking against the Grays. This is your old school teacher and she has much to tell you."

  At first Dayton didn't recognize Miss Pennington, but as she spoke, memories of his school days came flooding back.

  Pen told Dayton that he was wrong, and that the Grays were good little people. "The Grays are simply misunderstood. They never meant to destroy the old world. Surely the people of Earth must have done something to deserve their fate. Maybe the Grays tried to teach the humans of Earth to behave and not be so sinful. Possibly the Grays only wanted to help them, but those people were just wicked and therefore earned their demise."

  Pen took a breath and continued. "From the smallest child to the oldest adult, something the humans did on Earth gained them the response they got. That they did not listen to the Grays was the most likely reason. The fact that we of Neo Terra are also not listening will surely lead to our own destruction. If you listen to me, I can guide us all to salvation. I know the truth of these small Grays. They are kind and loving. We should embrace their ways and reject our own sinful behaviors."

  The members of her group were sure that this speech was the defining moment when they would be heard and listened to.

  "I would like to thank you ladies for bringing this to my attention," Dayton said. "I will speak with the council immediately and express your concerns to them. But if you will all excuse me, we are only a day away from testing a very important planet event. I must leave you all now since I have several other meetings to attend. Please feel free to walk around the building. There are many rooms with images of our ancestors hanging on the walls for you to enjoy." Dayton's tone was kind but firm.

  After the ladies had gone, Dayton turned to one of his staffers and said, "In the future, if you have a group of nuts seeking my attention, please ask what they want first. If it's this type of drivel again, either shoot me, or tell them that I'm off-planet and won't be back for a few days because my oxygen tank ran out of air and I'm suffering in a hospital. I'm sure these women mean well, but it seems ludicrous to me that we should change our attitude to a species whose recorded history is so utterly different to my teacher's secondhand experience of one individual Gray alien's behavior. Of course the Gray was good! It had to be good. It was trapped."

  ***

  The hunt for the Grays lasted quite some time, as humans and Taskoids searched through space. The masses in the black hollow world became more and more restless and eager. They wanted their revenge. Soon the argument to destroy the inhabitants of Betelle, the Grays' world, became a rallying cry in the streets.

  But one simple voice persisted, that of Pennington, great granddaughter of Peony. She appeared on monitors in cities all around Neo Terra. A reporter interviewed her, and she pleaded with humanity to hold to a higher moral standard then the Grays of the past had shown. She begged the people to hear her as she made the point that nothing they could do now would ever erase the sins of the past. This was humanity's opportunity to show the universe that they were no longer at the mercy of their past beliefs, that they could finally, through logic and compassion, be better than their forefathers.

  So who was Pennington? Her great grandmother and great, great grandmother had been well respected for their achievements in the past, but Pen had never added any glory to her family's great name. Perhaps it was just as well, her new friends said, that she didn't have an illustrious history, which might distract people's attention from the truths she wished to impart. They soon convinced her to lead a revival, a return to the traditional religions of the past.

  The group scoured the data resources on Earth's history and after much research, settled on the religion they thought most appropriate to follow, the Roman Catholics. That religion, with its elaborate practices, had captured the imagination of these women, and they decided that Pennington would make a perfect pope.

  They started small, with only a few followers joining every week but gradually the ranks of this new church swelled. Possibly that was only because the church was something new, that these people were just bored with their old lives. But Pennington liked to preach to those who would listen that this revival was due solely to a renewed faith in what she referred to as "better humans."

  They held mass nightly and women of the once small petitioning group soon took the ranks of bishop and priest. Celeste became the first bishop and was in line to be pope after Pennington. Pen took the name of 'Pope Paul,' both as a traditional response to the religion and as a short form name for Pauline. That it was women who were responsible for the revival of this lost religion spoke to Pennington's dogged determination to find recognition for their ideas. Never in humanity's history had a woman ever held the rank of pope, but as most new followers had no knowledge of the religion's past, a woman's rise to power was not viewed as uncommon.

  Only one incident between the religious sect led by Pennington, and t
he political order led by Dayton marred the reputation of the new church. Pope Paul did not believe that her opposition to this attack on the Grays' home world had been taken seriously by Dayton, and she decided to return to his office in force, with her church backing, to make sure that he heard her.

  Pope Paul and fifty followers entered the central government building and asked to speak with Dayton, making it more of a statement then a request. Dayton was doing his weekly appearance on the news hour, hosted by a reporter he had dealt with in the past. These interviews were projected to all the Taskoid monitors around the world ship and focused on existing events.

  "So you're saying, then, that these new Taskoid-built human hybrids will be our first full line of defense in the war to come with the Grays?" asked the interviewer.

  Dayton put his glass of water back on the small table separating the two men. "That is correct. These volunteers have decided to give their lives over to this technology to ensure the success of this campaign."

  The news event was recorded live, with most of the seats in the theater being occupied by interested citizens. This day, however, Pope Paul and her followers had decided to protest during the live event by filling the seats with her church's members.

  "That's a lie!" shouted Pennington from her tier of seats. Her rant was seen as mere heckling and the reporter, dismissing the outburst, pressed on with another question. "Will these volunteers be able to have the technology removed and return to a normal life after we have fought the Grays?"

  "We believe so. The Prime has assured us of it, and our own research shows that this type of technology is reversible," Dayton responded confidently.

  "That's a lie!" shouted Pennington again. This time her followers shouted too.

  "Please, let's have order here," said the reporter, trying to keep the interview not only civil but relevant. "So will there be some form of compensation given to these volunteers after this fight has ended?"

  "We, as the people's government, will make every effort to give these brave men and women full compensation…" Dayton was interrupted by Pennington again.

  "That's a lie!"

  The reporter was about to speak to this continuing outburst when Dayton took control and spoke directly to Pennington, "Look, if you have something to add to the conversation, don't hide in the crowd like a coward. Get up here and speak your mind!"

  Pope Paul, in all her religious regalia, rose and proceeded to the stage to accept the challenge. A seat was provided and she sat across from Dayton. She began spouting her message but Dayton cut her off. "It's customary to introduce yourself first, so people know who you are and what grievance you would like to express."

  Flushing with embarrassment, Pennington stumbled to introduce herself, first as Miss Pennington, then correcting herself and using the name of Pope Paul. Pen had stage fright for the first time, quite unexpected, for she spoke often from the pulpit. Dayton was not a cruel man, but he did feel insulted at being called a liar and decided to make that point known.

  "You have chosen to call me a liar, shouting at me from the crowd like a coward and hiding behind several people. Now you appear before everyone on this planet, thanks to our monitors, dressed in some audacious costume. Who do you claim to be, that you can judge my words and decide what is truth and what is a lie?"

  This idea was not working out as Pennington had planned. She had been sure that once she was on an equal footing with Dayton, she could sway the minds of the world to follow her guidance. But the world was now viewing her as some kind of freak.

  Trying to regain her composure, Pen said, "Many of us believe we are on the wrong course here. We do not believe that the Grays are some malevolent force of evil, but are in fact, bringers of truth and light." Pennington thought this was a good start. Now surely Dayton would understand the force she and her group represented.

  The reporter and Dayton sat there stunned, amazed disbelief written all over their faces.

  "So you would have us believe that these Grays, who were responsible for the annihilation of all humanity, did so in order to provide us with light?" Dayton finally asked. "Why was this 'light' brought to us? Who did you think would be around afterwards to appreciate this 'light' once all of humanity was obliterated from the Earth?"

  "It's not like that," retorted Pen, hoping to gain the upper hand in the conversation. To her this was a simple argument. Her Roman Catholic view was the right side of the argument and anyone who opposed it clearly needed to be converted. "The Gray that appeared before my great grandmother was our savior. It tried to tell her that Earth had to be cleansed, that its people had been impure and that we on Neo Terra were saved to spread the word of this Gray savior."

  This line of argument had worked well in the privacy of their church, but now, exposed to the masses, their thinking sounded like treason to the people who had newly learned the history of Earth and how their ancestors had suffered. "So you understand the language of the Grays?" the reporter asked. "This would be helpful, for none of our best minds have been able to understand their writings."

  "Well…no," Pen stumbled. "I do not speak their language, but they have spoken to me, that is, I understand their reasoning."

  "And you call me a liar?" Dayton snapped. "How can you sit there and tell us that you understand the Grays, when you don't have the ability to speak their language?"

  The followers of Pope Paul were becoming restless at the thought that they were being perceived as a lunatic group and, with shouts of hostility ringing in their ears, began to rise from their seats.

  Dayton pressed on. "You claim that this one Gray, who appeared before your great grandmother was a savior, sent to convince her of something. How do you know that I am not some type of savior? How do you know that I have not been placed in this position to guide our people to freedom and stop the oppression that the Grays represent? What proof do you have that this solitary Gray alien you know only by hearsay is superior to me?"

  There it was again, the call for proof. This was the one demand the new church had no defense against, for proof must always be the deciding factor for truth.

  "I have faith that I am right," mumbled Pen, feeling now the unpleasant pressure of being regarded as wrong in her approach. Her followers, seeing their leader crumble, realized they were in a losing position, and began leaving the building, retreating to fight another day.

  Chapter 20 Attacking the Grays

  After the first successful jump of the planet ship, Prime Minister Dayton's question was: do we move the planet to a safer location and hide, or do we fight? The council had spent many days trying to answer this question. He'd asked a similar question before, right after returning to Neo Terra with the huge, complex, advanced ship the Grays had used for exploration. "If we on this planet are like mere insects in our evolution compared to the Grays, is it wise to try hunting them down and killing them?"

  "I do not see that we have much choice," the Prime replied through Quat I. "We have shown you your missing history. It is clear these Grays, or Betellians, will come here and finish what they started. We have no idea whether or not the small Gray that showed itself to Deleray more than two hundred years ago sent a signal to its kind informing them of our current location. But we must assume that it did."

  "This is true," said a council member.

  "Besides, now that we have come this far, how will you explain such a decision to those who have transformed themselves into the Biotechs? How will you explain to the countless thousands who have committed to combat training and tell them that they must now stand down?" said the Prime.

  Dayton tried again. "It would be pointless to fight a power so advanced that anything we can do will just be brushed off. I fear that no matter what upgrades we have committed ourselves to, they will be insufficient."

  The meeting of the council and the Taskoids went on for the better part of the day but, in the end, it was concluded that they had started this course of action for good reasons and must follow throu
gh. Announcements were made and programs which had been planned for several years were now put into place. The world ship would begin the year-long journey to the system the Grays occupied.

  The Prime calculated the route to Betelle, using information from the small Gray's handheld device which Dayton had retrieved from the museum where Deleray left it and also from the records in the exploration ship's computers. The world ship would arrive in the Grays' orbit and begin the invasion within minutes of gaining a safe and stable orbit.

  The drive engine hummed to life and the first jump executed perfectly, to the cheers of the populace. The world ship arrived in a binary star system and began an orbit around the larger star. They stayed there for only an hour while the systems were checked for potential defects. Once they were sure that the system was working perfectly, the world ship jumped again. This time they arrived near a pale blue planetoid of immense size and mass, a methane-rich world which circled a star so distant that the light barely reached its surface.

  The populace of Neo Terra marveled at the images on monitors placed in every city. The cameras on the surface of their black world revealed startling views. The calculations determined that the world ship could not stay long in any one orbit for fear of impacting the planets they circled and, within an hour, the ship jumped again.

  The power source of the QEP drive was a dark energy cell which would gather dark energy from the cosmos and store it for the ship. However, this power cell had limits due to the planet having such great mass compared to the explorer ship where it had been first used, so it needed more time to recharge more often. The Taskoid and human calculations looked for empty regions of space that would have little to no impact on the universe if they stopped and recharged the power cell with dark energy.

  On the third jump, the world ship materialized between two solar systems on track to collide with each other. There the ship coasted through the still empty space between the two systems. The population of Neo Terra spent a week drifting along and recording data of this celestial event, awestruck by the majestic beauty and the imminent tragic demise of two magnificent solar systems with their multitude of fantastic worlds circling a star tearing itself apart.